Death penalty concerns raised in Las Vegas MS-13 case

LAS VEGAS — Attorneys raised concerns that defendants in a federal MS-13 case could face the death penalty at a hearing Tuesday after federal prosecutors in an unrelated Reno case said they would not seek death, then reversed course last week in a highly unusual move.

The hearing, in Las Vegas, was intended as a pretrial check-in for Jose Luis Reynaldo Reyes-Castillo, David Arturo Perez-Manchame, Joel Vargas-Escobar and Alexander De Jesus Figueroa-Torres, whom prosecutors have linked to multiple killings and accused of being leaders of the MS-13 gang.

Vargas-Escobar was arrested in New York on April 1, throwing a wrench into a joint trial that was supposed to start on April 21.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Rose noted prosecutors have filed notices they plan to not seek death for the other defendants and said the decision hasn’t been made for Vargas-Escobar, but is unlikely to be different.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Melanee Smith said the case remains one in which the death penalty will not be sought.

But defense attorney Lisa Rasmussen, who represents Figueroa-Torres, said there is no guarantee prosecutors won’t change their position, as they did in the Reno case.

“I can’t even predict what happens between today and tomorrow with this administration,” she said.

Perez-Manchame’s attorney, Michael Kennedy, also suggested the government could switch its stance on not seeking death.

“That is the elephant in the room and I’m not going to ignore it,” he said.

Spokespeople for the U.S. attorney’s office and Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment.

Political implications

It’s a case seemingly aligned with the political priorities of President Donald Trump’s administration — and the administration’s guidelines for cases that merit the death penalty.

“This terrorist entered our country illegally and is accused of orchestrating 11 murders — under President Trump’s leadership, we will not rest until this terrorist organization is completely dismantled and its members are behind bars,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement after Vargas-Escobar’s arrest.

The U.S. attorney general’s office issued a memo Feb. 5, the day Bondi was sworn in, saying prosecutors were expected to seek death in certain cases, including “capital crimes committed by aliens who are illegally present in the United States,” unless there were “significant mitigating circumstances.”

The memo also directed the attorney general’s capital review committee to reevaluate cases where prosecutors decided not to pursue death during the Biden administration with special attention to “capital crimes committed by defendants present in the United States illegally.”

According to Rose, the defendants in the MS-13 case would be subject to removal proceedings if released from custody.

After Vargas-Escobar was arrested, prosecutors filed an emergency motion asking to address the trial date, given that it would likely not give him enough time to prepare.

Defense attorneys responded with a request to separate the cases of the other three men so their trial could move forward.

U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro denied the request to sever the cases and delayed the trial until August 2026. But in making her ruling, the judge mentioned the Reno case and said she believed the most persuasive argument for not continuing the trial would be that while the case is delayed, prosecutors could decide to seek the death penalty for the three defendants besides Vargas-Escobar.

‘Unprecedented actions’

Cory Spurlock, whose case is based in Reno and prosecuted by the same U.S. attorney’s office as the MS-13 case, was indicted by a federal grand jury in 2023 on counts including organizing a murder for hire conspiracy, conspiring to distribute marijuana and stalking resulting in death.

Spurlock and two other men were suspected of killing William and Yesenia Larsen, whose bodies were found in Mono County, California in 2020, according to a 2021 California Department of Justice press release.

Federal prosecutors filed a notice they would not seek death for Spurlock in July 2024.

That changed on Thursday when Assistant U.S. Attorney Megan Rachow, a federal prosecutor working under interim U.S. Attorney Sigal Chattah, filed a notice that prosecutors intended to pursue a death sentence in Spurlock’s case. That notice was filed just 12 days before Spurlock’s trial was scheduled to start.

Federal public defenders objected in a motion filed Monday.

“The government’s unprecedented actions in this case violate the United States Constitution and the Federal Death Penalty Act,” they wrote. “Never before has an Attorney General’s decision not to seek the death penalty against a criminal defendant been reversed. Mr. Spurlock is the first individual in the history of the modern federal death penalty to be provided formal notice that the United States would not seek death against him and then have that notice replaced with a formal death notice under these circumstances.”

The attorneys included some qualifications: a case where prosecutors filed a late notice to seek the death penalty but were forbidden to do so by a court and cases in which prosecutors did not know about evidence of an offense eligible for death when they made their original decision.

‘New territory’

Death penalty cases have historically been rare in Nevada federal court.

The resources and preparation required for a death penalty case as opposed to a non-death penalty case are very different, said retired Nevada federal public defender Franny Forsman.

Typically, federal prosecutors disclose their intent to pursue death early in a case, she said. In some cases, the death penalty has been left on the table as a possibility, then removed as a trial approached.

Forsman said she had not heard of federal prosecutors changing their minds after deciding not to seek death, but has been concerned the current Justice Department would use the death penalty as a political statement.

Longtime defense attorney Richard Wright, who represents Reyes-Castillo, said until the administration of President Trump and Bondi, he also was not aware of a case where federal prosecutors sought death after saying they wouldn’t.

“It’s new territory, but obviously there’s lots of new territory with Trump and Bondi,” he said.

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